Twenty-two years ago, the Seattle-based architecture firm NBBJ was one of the first major companies to move back into Pioneer Square, the city’s then-neglected historic heart. The firm’s 200 employees helped spur a neighborhood renaissance. But having grown to 330 employees, and hampered by offices that were spread across six floors, in 2004 it decided to move and again play the agent of urban change. It became both the designer and the anchor tenant of Alley24, a mixed-use complex located in South Lake Union, a former industrial area being transformed by Vulcan Real Estate, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s firm.

NBBJ’s new headquarters are located within 223 Yale, the office component of Alley24. The site, a 256-by-360-foot city block, had been anchored by the Richmond Laundry, built in phases between 1917 and 1945. A landmark designation mandated the preservation of its masonry facade. Rather than simply piling 214,000 square feet of offices and retail shops, as well as 172 apartments, behind the laundry’s historic walls, NBBJ wanted to fashion a live/work/play environment that would showcase the firm’s commitment to sustainability, what design principal Brent Rogers describes as “doing the most with the least.” Additionally, the firm wanted to achieve a LEED Silver rating for the project.

The need to infuse the entire Alley24 block with light and air suggested a classic urban design scheme: Two midblock alleys that divide the site into quarters. Rogers clustered the entrances to offices, apartments, and underground parking around the alleys’ crossroads, creating a lively “Main and Main” feel; to ensure the perimeter remained active, he spread shops along the street-facing elevations. Town houses and flats occupy the former laundry, while apartment buildings flank it. These steel-framed buildings are clad in an innovative, recycled-paper-and-resin material called Richlite, while patterned concrete panels cover the posttensioned concrete office buildings. via

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 4:57 am and is filed under Architecture Design. Tags: 223 Yale at Alley24, Architecture of OFfice Building, Brent Rogers, Freemasonry, Microsoft Corporation, NBBJ Architect, office building design, Office Design, Pioneer Square, retail shops, Seattle Washington, South Lake Union, United States, Vulcan Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.